Afram Plantation Limited
Afram Plains Region, Ghana
Initial Investment: May 2011
Cape Pine Investment Holdings
53,000 hectares
Initial Investment: October 2010
Cape Pine is a sustainably managed pine plantation and sawmilling business with headquarters in Stellenbosch, South Africa. The company manages its timber assets in order to comply with Forest Stewarsdhip Council™ (FSC™) guidelines, as well as to provide for the rapidly increasing, long-term demand for structural timber in Africa.
Dentistanbul
Istanbul, Turkey
Initial Investment: March 2007
Exited: November 2010
Dentistanbul is a leading private dental care provider in Istanbul and has the only licensed private dental hospital in the country. It has established a brand recognized as the preeminent provider of high-quality, reasonably priced, full-service dental care in Istanbul, meeting the needs of Turkey’s growing middle class. The company was acquired by Rhea Asset Management November 2010.
Deqingyuan
Beijing, China
Initial Investment: May 2007
Exited: April 2010
Beijing Deqingyuan Agricultural Technology Company (“DQY”) produces nationally certified, high-quality, branded chicken eggs on an “eco-farm” 100 kilometers outside of urban Beijing. The company operates its site under tight quality and bio-security conditions and high environmental and animal welfare standards. DQY sells to urban, middle-class consumers, who are increasingly seeking safe, high-quality foods and who can afford to pay a premium for such products. GEF’s ownership in DQY was acquired by management and existing shareholders in March 2010.
Duoyuan
Beijing, China
Initial Investment: February 2008
Partially Exited: February 2010
Duoyuan Global Water, founded in 1992, supplies water treatment equipment in China. The company offers products that address key steps in the water treatment process.
Empresas Verdes Argentina
Corrientes, Argentina
Initial Investment: October 2007
Exited: February 2010
Empresas Verdes Argentina S.A. (“EVASA”) is a plantation forestry company located in the Province of Corrientes in the north central Mesopotamia region of Argentina. The company owns a total property base of approximately 55,000 hectares of which an estimated 24,000 hectares are planted with pine species on a 20-year rotation. The remainder of the property consists of wetlands and protected areas. EVASA has embarked on planting, thinning, pruning, and fire control. Throughout the investment period, EVASA added industrial capacity in stages, beginning with a small log line to process forest thinnings.
Euromedic
Budapest, Hungary
Initial investment: December 2000
Exited: July 2005
Euromedic International, N.V. is a major healthcare services company in Central Europe operating two distinct lines of business: diagnostic imaging and dialysis centers. Since late 2000, Euromedic has grown to be one of the largest private healthcare providers in Central Europe, with centers in five countries and expansion underway in two others. Building on its successful operations in Hungary, Euromedic has expanded into underdeveloped and fragmented markets in Central Europe, seizing the opportunity of regulatory changes to establish dialysis and diagnostic imaging centers in underserved regions where demand exists for modern and efficient healthcare services.
Global Forest Products
Mpumalanga Province, South Africa
90,000 hectares
Initial Investment: February 2001
Exited: July 2007
GEF acquired the plantations, along with three sawmills and two value-added processing facilities (South Africa Plywood (Pty) Limited), to establish Global Forest Products (Pty) Ltd. (“GFP”), an integrated forest products company based in South Africa’s Mpumalanga Province. Although the plantations were producing high-quality trees at the time of acquisition, the processing infrastructure was badly run-down, and the business was underperforming. GEF achieved certification as “well-managed” by the Forest Stewardship Council™ (FSC™) for GFP’s 90,000 hectares of plantations and protected areas, meeting an internationally recognized set of environmental, social, and operational criteria for sustainable forest management. GFP also demonstrated its commitment to its 2,000+ employees, and the communities in which they lived, by providing health, sanitation, education, and other human services. Examples of services GEF introduced were health clinics and HIV counseling, clean water, local schools, and nutrition programs. GEF recruited an international management team and implemented a significant capital expenditure program to modernize outdated equipment. With a new focus on product quality and customer service, along with extensive employee training at all levels of the company, the business returned to profitability by 2006. Under GEF ownership, revenues increased by a compounded annual growth rate of 15%. In 2007, GEF sold GFP and related entities to York Timber, a publicly listed South African forest products company, returning the company to historically under-represented African ownership.
Global Woods
Uganda
12,182 hectares
Initial Investment: March 2015
Global Woods operates a forestry concession in the Kikonda Forest Reserve in Uganda. When planting is completed, 8,000 hectares of pine and eucalyptus plantations will supply the growing local and regional markets with a basket of products including utility poles, structural timber, and biomass energy. The remainder of the 12,182 hectare concession is managed for conservation purposes. Uganda has excellent conditions for biological growth, and Global Woods is one of the best managed plantations in Uganda today, with quality nursery operations, planting, and silvicultural management, as well as best in class ESG management.
Greenergy
Budapest, Hungary
Initial Investment: May 2007
Greenergy is a developer, owner, and operator of clean energy facilities in Hungary. The company currently owns more than 55 MW of operating industrial co-generation projects. In the coming years, Greenergy will invest in an additional 30–50 MW per year of new and acquired clean energy assets throughout Central Europe, including gas-fired co-generation plants and renewable energy assets like wind, bio-mass, and bio-gas.
Hijauan Bengkoka
Sabah, Malaysia
25,000 hectares
Initial Investment: August 2007
Exited: June 2013
Hijauan Bengkoka (“Greening Bengkoka”) is an integrated forest products operation on the Bengkoka Peninsula in northern Malaysia. In partnership with the Sabah Forestry Development Authority (SAFODA), Hijauan Bengkoka will harvest and replant 25,000 FSC™-certified hectares of Acacia mangium under a long-term concession. A newly built state-of-the-art chip mill has an annual output capacity of 180,000 metric tons, which will supply the growing fiber markets in Southeast Asia.
Imvelo Forests
Mpumalanga, South Africa
3,671 hectares
Initial Investment: May 2013
Located in Mpumalanga, South Africa, Imvelo Forests is a newly formed forestry company, established to house individual farm assets acquired as part of a private timberland accumulation strategy. The plantations will supply building, fencing, and transmission poles; mining timber; and pulp logs to various local companies and private buyers.
Kilombero Valley Teak Company Limited
Morogoro Region of Southern Tanzania
28,000 hectares
Initial Investment: March 2011
Kilombero Valley Teak Company (KVTC) is a teak plantation and sawmilling business located in the Kilombero and Ulanga Districts of the Morogoro Region of Southern Tanzania. KVTC includes approximately 8,150 planted hectares and total landholdings of 28,000 hectares, as well as a sawmill with a current production capacity of 35,000 cubic meters.
Monte Alto Forestal
Punta Arenas, Chile
55,539 hectares
Initial Investment: November 2008
Exited: December 2015
Monte Alto is a forest property in Southern Chile which consists of 41,300 hectares of native Lenga forest (Nothofagus pumilio), and the company serves both domestic and international customers. The Monte Alto property is a naturally occurring homogeneous forest with 2.8 million cubic meters of standing saw logs and more than 15 million cubic meters of total biomass. The business also includes a sawmill, which GEF plans to expand and modernize, increasing production from 25,000 cubic meters per year to 75,000 cubic meters per year while improving yield and product mix.
Mozwood
Mozambique
Initial Investment: November 2009
Exited: November 2014
Mozwood is a 25-year concession, approved in 2009, which combined with the Pemba Sun concession consists of 160,000 hectares of Eastern Miombo Woodlands in Mozambique. Together, the concessions have in excess of 200,000 m3 commercialized hardwood volumes and approximately 280,000 m3 of species that can be commercialized.
Peak Timbers
Piggs Peak, Swaziland
30,000 hectare
Initial Investment: May 2012
Peak Timbers is a 31,500 hectare timber plantation and sawmilling business located in Swaziland. While one-third of the property is managed for conservation purposes, the balance consists of Forest Stewardship Council™ (FSC™) certified pine and eucalyptus plantations. The company, the largest employer in northern Swaziland with over 1,200 direct and indirect employees, exports pulpwood and pine lumber primarily to South African markets.
Pemba Sun and Mozwood
Cabo Delgado Province, Mozambique
156,000 hectares
Initial Investment: March 2009
Exited: November 2014
Pemba Sun and Mozwood are sustainably managed tropical hardwood concessions in the Eastern Miombo Woodlands of Mozambique.
Product Software Development
Bedford, MA
Initial Investment: May 1997
Exited: February 2001
Product Software Development, Inc. develops, markets, and supports enterprise asset maintenance software used by businesses, government agencies, and other organizations to assist them in maintaining high-value capital assets such as facilities, plants, and production equipment. The company currently operates under the name MRO Software, Inc. MRO complements its enterprise asset maintenance software with an Internet-based business-to-business e-Commerce network and set of desktop requisition and online procurement software products that enable businesses to engage in electronic commerce. MRO’s products allow customers to improve internal processes and compete more efficiently in an increasingly collaborative and electronic market. The company was acquired by IBM in 2006.
Ramanas Farms
Sabie, South Africa
8,300 hectares
Initial Investment: January 2013
Ramanas Farms is an 8,300 hectare plantation forest company certified by the Forest Stewardship Council™ (FSC™) and located around Sabie, South Africa. The plantation mainly produces transmission poles, sawlogs and mining timber for local and regional markets.
Rocklands
Swaziland
Initial Investment: May 2012
Rocklands is a mining timber mill located in Swaziland established in conjunction with local partners to provide a higher value off-take for burnt timber. Rocklands mainly produces underground supports for the South African mining industry (small mining, turned poles and pencil props) and has a secure fiber intake from its partnership with Peak Timbers.
Terszol
Budapest, Hungary
Initial Investment: February 2009
Terszol Kft. is an integrated waste management and environmental remediation services business based in Hungary. Since its founding in 1988, the company has grown through greenfield development and acquisitions from a remediation business focused on industrial site cleanup work to an integrated provider of industrial and municipal waste handling, remediation, and disposal services.